Perhaps the best point Marx makes is the simple fact that the only reason we have money is because it became universally accepted as a means of currency, and in a sense the same applies to all property. Take away this principle and well….but is communism the inevitable result or just one possibility? If a system has been in place for so long, completely abolishing it will never be easy (think of the paperwork! Although saying that, the internet has revolutionised so many things, including doing away with a lot of paperwork!). Maybe it‟s better things are revised and tweaked along the way. If things are not going so well, it might be time for a bit of a clear out, but completely turning the world upside down? I don‟t know!


Personally, I think a new Industrial Age would be a good thing. We‟ve had an age of the mass production of consumer goods – PCs, Ipods, and other ways of showing how wonderfully flat images can glide across flat screens – but these are just being modified and repeated now. How about some completely new 21st century products? It might sound expensive, but I think there‟s a need for economics to be revised somehow. Everything it seems is becoming too expensive. And with any new production brings more employment which we do need. Enough of nonsensical “virtual” internet jobs, let‟s have some more good old fashioned stuff being built! And how about greater utilisation of our greatest energy source, the sun?


Going back to the phrase, “It sounds good in principle, but it would never happen”, having re-read the Communist Manifesto, I actually wonder if it is all good, even in principle, particularly in relation to the proposals to do away with families, and its apparent refusal to accept individual will (I‟m afraid I can‟t accept the view that only once a system is in place that allows the individual to be free can an individual be truly free – under any system, I believe each person‟s mind is still individual). It certainly is an amazing book of ideas, however. It quite accurately charts the history of labour until Marx‟s day, and definitely gets the brain excited about all kinds of possibilities.


I was left to wonder, well if I‟m not a communist, what am I? I believe in looking out for people, which I suppose makes me a socialist, but to be honest, all I could really come up with was that I must be a hedonist! I live for pleasure, and that‟s about it. I increasingly think about the world as being a kind of super-advanced virtual reality computer game, and the best thing in any computer game is to have a “cheat” giving you infinite lives. Anyone who ever played Jet Set Willy with infinite lives will know what I‟m talking about here. So, that might be quite good fun – just need to invent some kind of time machine thing (Fisk drifts into fantasy here…definitely gets you thinking the book though!).


I have no truck with liars, and given that there is so much dishonesty in politics these days, modern politics really does leave me pretty cold. Saying that, with revolution in the air, and me always being a kind of revolutionary, I must admit, I was dead impressed with what took place in Egypt. Two weeks the people camped in that square – 2 weeks! That shows commitment, compared to all the London protestors shuffling back home, a bit embarrassed probably, after 1 night. When Mubarak announced he would not stand down, and was proud of his people (a surprisingly brave speech in fact), I thought, oh well, it‟s all come to nothing. But when the next day it was announced that the military had removed him, I felt quite proud for them – they‟d done it!


But the question is still there – has a better system actually been put in place, and how can you achieve this kind of revolution on a global scale? And to the man sitting at the end of the bar with his bottle of


wine and a paper, does it really make any difference? 15 NICK FISK


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